


Voices at the Door

by Elvendork



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7776076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvendork/pseuds/Elvendork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after the Fellowship leave on their Quest, Bilbo and Elrond have a discussion about guilt and forgiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices at the Door

**Author's Note:**

> Occurred to me last night, written up this morning... just a little snippet of one of my favourite under-appreciated friendships. I hope you enjoy it. The title, and the final part of Bilbo and Elrond's conversation, are references to Bilbo's poem "I sit beside the fire and think" from FotR.

‘You would have done it, wouldn’t you?’ asks Elrond, with somewhat incredulous admiration.

‘Hmm? Oh, I expect so.’ Bilbo turns in his seat to watch the Elf Lord stroll across the hall towards him. Neither speaks again until Elrond has taken a seat beside Bilbo and watched him curiously for several moments. There is an understanding between them, Bilbo thinks. No matter that they are Elf and Hobbit; no matter that there are millennia between them; there is understanding also. It is the understanding of the old who are unable to protect the young whom they love. It is the understanding of mistakes. It is the understanding of forgiveness.

‘You needn’t, you know,’ Elrond assures Bilbo gently. ‘You needn’t have even offered.’

‘I don’t know,’ Bilbo shrugs. ‘I thought perhaps it might go some way to – to make up for… everything.’ He fidgets with the corner of a sheet of parchment in his lap. He has not written nearly as much as he had planned today. Frodo and his companions have been gone for a week. He wonders how far they have travelled already.

‘My dear hobbit,’ Elrond replies softly, laying his hand across both of Bilbo’s. ‘What in the world do you believe you have to make up for? The evil of the Ring would not have remained hidden even had you left it with Gollum in his cave. It would have surfaced. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but it would not have remained hidden forever.’

Bilbo shakes his head, seeming not to have really heard Elrond’s words.

‘I ought to have stayed in the Shire,’ he says. ‘I ought to have turned the dwarves away. I ought never to have left Bag End. None of this would have happened. None of it. Frodo would be safe. The dwarves – I brought only trouble upon them –’

‘You foolish child,’ Elrond chides, his voice quiet and fond. ‘I have heard your tales, and I have heard the reports of Gandalf. I have seen how the dwarves respect you. Is there some aspect of your adventures I have missed? Do you mean to tell me that the evidence of all of these sources is wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Bilbo wretchedly. ‘I have just been thinking – perhaps if I –’ but Elrond holds up a hand to forestall Bilbo’s objections.

‘You are not to blame for the deaths of your friends, Bilbo. You are not responsible for the perils we now face with the Ring. You are but one hobbit in a very wide world.’

‘Gandalf once said something very similar,’ Bilbo supplies, smiling weakly.

‘He was, as is very often the case, correct. You are quite a remarkable fellow, do not mistake me. You have achieved things that I do not believe any other hobbit ever has. Still you are not to blame for all the sorrows of the world. Your friends have made their own choices, and if those choices have not always ended well – that is the way of life, as it has ever been.’

Bilbo’s smile wobbles and breaks; his face crumples with grief and he covers it with his hands to hide his shame and guilt; to hold back the tears that are already falling.

‘For three quarters of a century I have wondered what I could have done differently,’ he explains haltingly. ‘I was the Fourteenth member, meant to stave of such bad luck. I did everything I could – everything – to fulfil my purpose, even when I hardly understood what that was.’

‘You did wonderfully, my friend.’ Elrond’s voice is filled with pity; his heart aches for this smallest of adventurers as he pulls Bilbo into a firm embrace.

‘I thought I had made my peace long ago,’ Bilbo continues, speaking into Elrond’s shoulder. ‘I thought I had put it behind me. So much happened on that journey – I could not control it all.’

‘Nor would anyone expect you to,’ Elrond assures him as Bilbo gently disengages from the elf’s arms.

‘Yet this has all – this business with the Ring. It is not over. My mistakes –’

‘You are _not_ to blame for this, Bilbo. Do you hear me? It is not down to any mistake of yours.’

Bilbo waves away the objection with enough of his old impatience to make Elrond smile.

‘Nevertheless I have made mistakes –’

‘As have we all –’

‘And you cannot deny that they have led to pain for those I care about.’ Bilbo pauses and thinks for a moment. ‘Perhaps that is selfish. I know that the Ring could not have stayed with Gollum forever, and perhaps it is better that we should have found it when we did than that it should have been discovered by some goblin or servant of Sauron.’

‘That is true,’ Elrond allows, nodding in agreement.

‘But would Frodo have come to bear it, then? Would Frodo have gone through such toil to get it here, only to be rewarded with more, and worse, to come? I carried the Ring for sixty years. Frodo has possessed it for less than twenty, and I doubt he has used it as frivolously as I did – and yet it is he who must face the task of destroying it?’

Noticing Elrond about to interrupt, Bilbo shakes his head and touches the elf’s arm to stop him. ‘Wait. Please. I know that I may not have had the strength to do this. I am old, and I bore the Ring too long to be trusted with it again. I know. But I feel… as though I deserve this punishment, far more than Frodo ever will.’ Bilbo sighs heavily, looking suddenly every moment of his hundred and twenty eight years.

‘May I be permitted to offer an alternative viewpoint?’ Elrond asks. Bilbo, a spark of amusement momentarily showing on his face at the thought of this mighty Elf Lord requesting his permission to do anything, nods.

‘You are correct that you are both too old, and too much in the Ring’s power already, to undertake this Quest. You are also correct that had you not taken possession of the Ring in the first place, it is highly unlikely that it would have come to Frodo. Yet I would say this: You deserve no punishment, Bilbo Baggins, for either your taking or your use of the Ring. When Sméagol first encountered this treasure he murdered for it, and proceeded very quickly to use it for nefarious purposes. Whether your taking of the Ring was right or wrong, you took it without violence. You spared Gollum when he was entirely within your power. You used the Ring on your journey to save the lives of your companions more than once. Then you returned to the Shire and in sixty years you never used the Ring for anything more than what you call “frivolous” purposes. Have you any idea of the strength needed for that? Have you any idea of how unprecedented was your giving up the Ring _of your own free will_?’

‘You are very kind, Lord Elrond,’ Bilbo says, offering a genuine, if rather tired, smile.

‘I am very _honest_ , Master Baggins.’

The two sit in comfortable silence for some minutes. Bilbo wonders how young Peregrin is managing on their Quest. He is not yet even of age. Meriadoc will look after him, Bilbo is sure, and Samwise will follow Frodo into any danger. If Gimli is anything like his father then he will not likely be daunted by any amount of risk. Bilbo knows little of Legolas or Boromir, but Elrond appears to trust them. Gandalf and Aragorn will take care of them all. Yet how much can even they do against the Nazgûl, should they encounter them again?

‘I fear for my daughter’s fate,’ admits Elrond. The statement does not seem to require any response, and he lapses into silence once more.

‘Do you think they will succeed?’ Bilbo asks after what feels like a long time.

‘I do not know,’ Elrond replies. ‘I foresee one future in which they do, and many in which they do not.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘We can wait,’ says Elrond.

‘We can sit beside the fire and think,’ murmurs Bilbo.

‘We have seen much, between us.’

‘I think there is yet more that neither of us can know. Even with your age and wisdom, Lord Elrond.’

‘There is always more that we do not know. It is good. It gives us something to live for.’

‘That, and waiting,’ Bilbo’s voice drops almost to a whisper.

‘Listening for returning feet, and voices at the door,’ adds Elrond softly.

So they sit. And they wait. And they understand one another.

Bilbo smiles and sleeps, and dreams of mountains.

Elrond stands and thinks, and plans for the many futures he foresees.


End file.
